The 4 Best Ways to Grow Your Knowledge
Knowledge is the key to success and happiness.
Created with Midjourney
Have you heard of epistemology?
I (embarrassingly) didn’t know what it was until just a few weeks ago.
Listening to David Deutsch on Naval Ravikant’s podcast, he brought up epistemology and then I heard the two on the Tim Ferriss show. Since then I’ve listened to each episode more than 10 times.
This led me down a rabbit hole.
Simply put, epistemology is the theory of knowledge.
As you start to think about the theory of knowledge, you’ll naturally begin to rethink different ways you can build knowledge, and what more knowledge can do for you.
In this blog post, I explore the different ways we can grow our knowledge in today’s age.
Reading
How long has reading been around again?
For thousands of years, people have been writing down their knowledge to share with future generations. It’s the most traditional and typical way of building knowledge.
There are books about everything you can possibly imagine and I know what you’re thinking… Reading is boring, and this answer is common.
There is a reason why the answer is common - it works, and it has worked for a long time.
I hated reading for many years.
It wasn’t until we got locked down that I really decided to start reading seriously. Even then, I still hated it, but the more I read, the more I began to love it.
Now, I can’t go a day without reading. I love it and it helps me build my knowledge effectively.
If you want to start, I recommend reading things you know 100% will interest you, whether that’s fiction or not. Eventually, you can start adding books that might interest you.
In no time, you’ll have a giant reading list, and not enough time to read it all.
That’s when you’ll realize you need to find other ways to increase your knowledge.
Online courses
This is a more direct way to build knowledge. It falls into both the visual, and audio categories of learning.
Courses can be more helpful than books because you can see someone doing what you are trying to learn.
Traditionally people think of school, but it’s easier now than ever to access all sorts of courses. In fact, you can even access school courses online for free.
The nice part about online courses (aside from the price) is that you can do them whenever and wherever without having any prior qualifications.
I personally like going on websites like Udemy, but there are also a lot of individuals who like to create their own courses that can be helpful and often they’re free. Make sure to read reviews though as many create awful courses as a way to make money.
If you want to increase your knowledge, especially when it comes to technical skills, courses are a great way!
Podcasts
I love podcasts and honestly, it is one of my favourite ways to build knowledge.
Podcasts don’t feel like work - they feel like a conversation.
Listening to a podcast is like hanging out with your friends. The hosts are talking to you and you are learning from them directly.
They’ve grown like crazy over the last few years and now you can find podcasts on anything.
You can find hosts from all walks of life, which is fantastic because many of them are experts in their field. They’ll talk to you about what they’ve learnt or are learning.
It’s a way to build knowledge directly from the best!
Some of my favourite podcasts include:
Between these podcasts, it's easy to build knowledge from a wide range of topics including health, economics, business, tech, history and life in general.
I highly recommend checking these podcasts out if you’re looking to learn.
Good old experience
Ultimately, doing it yourself is almost always the best way to learn. There is no better teacher than experience.
You will fail, but that’s okay if you are learning along the way.
What do you want to learn about? Okay, now go ahead and try it (within reason of course)
Once you try it, you can then try any other method of building knowledge on the topic, and you will be able to better understand the knowledge you are intaking.
Afterwards, when you go back and try again, it’ll start to make more sense.
This is really up to you and requires some level of self-awareness. Some people prefer to learn, and then try, but for others, trying and then learning works better.
Try for yourself, and see which method of building knowledge works best for you.
Conclusion
There are many ways to build knowledge and depending on the topic, the method of choice will vary.
No matter what you are learning, just listening or reading something goes a long way.
It’ll help you make better decisions when the time comes and as we’ve discussed before… life is a series of decisions. If you increase your ability to make decisions, your life will improve.
So, if you want to live a good life… a successful, and happy life - find ways to build your knowledge base that suit you.
Thanks for reading,
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